1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to meeting scheduling and in particular to a method and apparatus for scheduling meetings in a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for permitting a prospective meeting attendee to specify conditions under which the attendee will attend a meeting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Scheduling of meetings has always been fraught with problems. This is particularly the case when one scheduling a meeting, or a meeting scheduler, has no management or other control over those whose attendance is either desired or necessary.
The prior art initially eased the scheduling burden in that keyboard/display terminal user's schedules could be stored in varying calendar forms, and all could be available for call-up at each terminal. These schedules could be called and scanned to determine common available times. This was extremely time consuming if schedules were only available in narrative form on a day-at-a-time basis. Even when monthly abbreviated schedules or calendars were available for call-up, mental or pencil and paper notation of available times was both error-prone and no minor chore.
The prior art has now gone further in solving the above-noted problems. Calendar application programs, stored in a host computer to which the terminal users are connected, are able to read calendars of prospective attendees and provide a listing of available meeting times and dates. One example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,836 issued to Donald E. Curtis, et al., and assigned to the assignee of the present application. Curtis et al. teaches a technique whereby available times and dates are derived from date and time ranges provided by the scheduler and from this listing a meeting scheduler may select a suitable time and date.
More recently, this technique has been enhanced in U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,077, assigned to the assignee herein, wherein the method whereby prospective attendees, calendars are examined has been greatly enhanced by providing an efficient method whereby prospective attendees' calendars may be examined and the contents thereof utilized to modify a preselected time span within a predetermined date span to provide possible options for desired meetings.
Despite the advances these systems represent in the calendaring art, there currently exists no method or apparatus whereby a prospective attendee may specify selected conditions under which that attendee will consent to attend a desired meeting. For example, a prospective attendee may determine that it will only be necessary for that attendee to attend a desired meeting if another specific attendee does not attend. By providing a system which permits prospective attendees to specify attendee confirmation parameters, the process of scheduling meetings in a data processing system may be greatly enhanced.